Duality
by thats-a-moray
Summary: Time changes but people stay the same. Character study of wraith Raziel and Sarafan Raziel. VERY IN NEED OF A RE-WRITE.


_Nosgoth, 2,000 years after the Pillars' corruption_  
_Ash City**  
**_

Using a jagged stone Raziel carved the symbol of his clan into the outer wall of the ruined city of the Dumahim vampires. Deep within its fire belching heart lay the monstrosity he once called 'brother' who so callously bore him into the abyss of the Lake of the Dead. Now merely a lifeless pile of ash and bone, his very soul devoured by the brother he had betrayed so easily, Dumah's clan territory was totally vacant, deprived even of its ghosts. If any Dumahim remained he hoped they would see this symbol and shudder.

His other brother, Turel, would have to wait. Killing Kain had always been his first priority and with the master so close at hand he dared not delay. It was just as well. He and Turel had been fierce rivals for as long as he could remember. Although he could not say for certain what sparked their mutual animosity he had never been an unwilling participant in their little feud. Turel thought himself better than Raziel, greater even than Kain. Raziel delighted in imagining the look of horror on his ex-brother's face when he approached him with Kain's blood still fresh on his claws. How envious he would be, how full of rage and indignation! That bastard would die full of hatred, just as he had countless centuries ago. He would have Kain's soul for his main course but Turel would be his dessert!

Dropping his tool onto the ash covered ground, Raziel's eyes lingered on the symbol he had etched as he turned and made for the Oracle of Nosgoth where his master awaited execution. _"It's only a matter of time now…" _

He walked at an easy pace, taking in the bleak scenery and reflecting on all that had occurred since he woke in the underworld with the Elder. His fall into the abyss left him profoundly disfigured: the burning waters tore the pale flesh from his body, seared holes through the already tattered remains of his wings, which Kain himself had sundered; ripped away were his throat and jaw, forcing him to conceal his horrid features behind the cloak bearing the symbol of his decimated clan; his eyeballs melted and his organs dissolved, rendering his soul prisoner to a grotesque, blue corpse. Dumah and Turel may have condemned him to this hell but their crimes paled in comparison to those of their master, Kain.

Melchiah, Zephon, Rahab, Dumah, Turel, Raziel: Kain raised them all from corpses resting in a derelict tomb, transforming them into his vampire lieutenants. But whose tomb was it? Curious that none of them ever thought to ask. It was the tomb of the Sarafan Order, elite paladins and priests dedicated to wiping out the vampire scourge from Nosgoth. They were holy warriors before Kain turned them into demons.

At one time Raziel would have appreciated the irony, but after emerging from the abyss and witnessing the decay Kain's reign had wrought over Nosgoth he saw the true nature of Kain's act. Blasphemy! Pestilence! The genocide of his clan! Before Nosgoth could be healed, Kain and all his brethren would have to die.

The vampires' smoke stacks choked out the sun and rained down ash like snow. There were no trees anymore, no grass, not even stars - only desolateness and cold. To think that this world had once been cloaked in green… yet now spring was but a distant memory. Raziel mourned for Nosgoth almost as much as he mourned for himself.

Who was Raziel the Sarafan? What nobility had Kain stolen from him? When Kain raised him he had been dead too long to remember his human life. Certainly, he could not have been much different than he was now. Time and circumstance may have altered him but he always held the same values at heart: honor, loyalty, justice, intellect. His white-hot eyes burned with ethereal fire. It pained him to realize how far he had fallen over the course of his life.

He did not know what he would do after he destroyed Kain and Turel. As he watched the white ash falling from the heavens, he decided that shutting off the smoke stacks would be his next goal. It might be too late to save Nosgoth, but at least he could finally see the sun again. After that he didn't care what he did next. His life up until Kain's betrayal had been anything but exciting. The clans fought their petty wars, Kain held court like a joke that had long outlived its humor, he trained his fledglings, fed himself on the blood of domesticated humans, all the while struggling against the specter of boredom. Once all this was over he would be happy enough to lie down and die once more, if that were possible. Now that he was reborn again as a wraith he doubted that he _could_ be destroyed.

Well then. All the better to kill Kain.

At last he stood on the brink of destiny. The Oracle's Cave opened before him. Upon first glance the cave appeared to house only a dry seer's cauldron. _"There must be more," _he said to himself as he circled the cauldron. As he did so he noticed an unusual marking on the floor. A clue to a secret passage, perhaps? The ethereal flames spouting from Raziel's eye sockets dimmed. Kain could not hide from him forever.

...

_Nosgoth, 500 years before the birth of Kain_  
_The City of Coorhagen_

"Raziel, wait…"

He stopped, knowing what she would say.

"Stay with me tonight. Please."

He tightened the knot of his cloak. "You know I can't do that. If we were found together…"

"When will I see you again?" she asked as if addressing the Fates with her lamentation. How often he asked them the same question only to receive no reply. For the sake of her honor and his responsibility he could not see her often; only when his unit passed through Coorhagen or on the few occasions when he managed to procure a short leave could they be together for a brief night. Love letters were no longer sufficient. Every day without her touch felt like a millennium, gazing upon her fine handwriting brought him only pain. He knew his men sensed the change in him. They were wary of his mistakes, thought he was getting sloppy. Turel had already challenged his authority once.

"Soon enough," he replied with false sincerity, drawing the cowl over his head. "I must return to the barracks before my men miss me. I'll write to you."

As he reached for the window shutters he felt her hand brush his arm. The air froze in his lungs as she wrapped her arm around his middle and leaned her head softly against his shoulder. Though her touch felt as gentle as a summer's breeze the touch of her soft skin and warm breath held him as surely as shackles made of iron. He swallowed hard. Gently taking her hand in his, he slowly relieved himself from her grasp. His heart pounded violently with the familiar sensation of flesh on flesh. "I'm very sorry, I have to leave now."

He pushed open the shutters and stepped over the window sill before she could ensnare him a second time. Grabbing hold of the lattice, he made his way down to the ground without taking his eyes off his task. When he reached the courtyard he hesitated. The devil inside drew his eyes back to Odilia's window. There she stood, trapped in the prison of her luscious blonde hair, her lily cheeks sparkling with moonlight and tears. She closed her shutters and locked them in place. Turning from her, he pulled his cloak tightly around himself against the chill and headed for the barracks with snow crunching underfoot.

One does not become a Sarafan Inquisitor by accident. Lord Malek, Leader of the Sarafan and Guardian of Conflict, hand-chose him to join his order at the tender age of eleven when he was but a squire training to become a knight as his father before him. For twenty years he lived in seclusion at the Sarafan Stronghold, surrounded by fellow priests, paladins, and holy warriors, studied ancient tomes and scriptures, trained day after day until his hands blistered and his back ached, and swore eternal vows to Phoebe, the Balance Guardian, to protect and serve her and in so doing cleanse Nosgoth of the vampire menace. The Pillars chose him, just as they chose Phoebe and the other Guardians. He might not be a Guardian himself – but due to his position of leadership among the Sarafan and the heavy responsibility he carried his fate was just as closely tied to the fate of Nosgoth as that of a true Guardian. It was understandable that he would have vices. Melchiah drank heavily and gorged himself on sweet meats, Zephon caroused with whores, Rahab gambled away every cent he earned, Dumah reveled in wanton violence, and Turel pre-occupied himself with vanity. That did not make him feel any less ashamed. He would cut out his own heart and grow cold to the world if he could.

Odilia's tenderness should not belong to him. Was he no better than a thief? An adulterer? Within a year's time she would be married to a nobleman. Although he was a noble himself as a as a Sarafan Inquisitor his responsibilities forbid him from taking a wife. He did not have time to be a husband.

"Why did I let it go this far?" he murmured chidingly to himself. He never should have started writing to her. He never wrote to any of the others.

Maybe this happened because he was getting older. He shuddered at the thought, knowing it to be true. By ordinary standards he could still be called young. In fact he was at his peak, which only meant that he had ceased to improve. Meanwhile, the vampire menace grew ever stronger. As did that bastard Turel.

He was thirty-one years old. He had no children that he knew of, no family – his mother passed away while he was training with the Sarafan and his father just a few years ago, survived by his second wife, whom Raziel did not care for in the slightest. As for his younger brothers and sisters, his most vivid memories of his siblings were of them as children. When he saw them as adults they seemed like ghosts of people he once knew. Perhaps in some crazed corner of his soul he believed Odilia would be his savior, the one to rescue him from the brink of losing whatever remained of his humanity. But in his heart he knew that this was a dream that could never come to pass. As he wandered through the chilly streets of Coorhagen he slowed and his gaze turned toward the distant frost-bitten mountains where his true destiny awaited him.

Janos Audron. That ancient vampire's black heart would become his legacy. Turel might take his place within the Sarafan Order one day, but that bastard could never claim that it was he who wrenched the un-living heart from that foul demon. Once he had accomplished that his life would be complete. At last he could rest.

He was too old to be anyone's husband, not in body but in soul. The twenty years he served in the Sarafan Order felt like twenty centuries. Most vampires, the young ones, looked remarkably human and he learned to slaughter them like vermin. At night he dreamed that the vampires he killed were human after all. Their blood stained his hands and stank like the corpses his Sarafan brothers impaled on pikes to torment the scourge and proclaim their superiority. Perhaps these nightmares did not bother him as much as they should. His form suffered because of Odilia, not because of some misplaced sense of compassion. If she knew how many lies and half-truths he told in his letters she probably wouldn't want him anymore.

That settled it. When he arrived in Uschtenheim he would send Odilia one final letter of goodbye. If it broke her heart, that would still be better than the alternative.


End file.
